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Articles We Never Finished Reading: Money Talks... Or Something

At its {Buckley v. Valeo, 1974] center is a distinction between expenditures and contributions. The Court said that, under the First Amendment, Congress could not restrict campaign expenditures. Spending money was like speech itself, because “every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money.” That included printing handbills, renting halls, and buying ads on television. It is a result of Buckley that wealthy candidates like Mayor Michael Bloomberg can spend as much as they want of their own money on their campaigns; it would be unconstitutional to limit their expenditures.

But, according to Buckley, limits on contributions were constitutionally permissible. The Court said that a campaign contribution served only as “a general expression of support for the candidate and his views, but does not communicate the underlying basis for the support.” In the Court’s view, limiting contributions did not significantly inhibit political expression by the person giving the money. This was why the Court concluded that it was permissible for the law to limit how much an individual could contribute to any particular campaign.

In the 1974 law, Congress had tried to set up a tightly controlled system for financing campaigns: the government would monitor and regulate both the inflows and the outflows of money. It is not clear that the proposal would have worked as intended, but at least it made holistic sense. Congress could essentially select a number for the over-all price of a congressional or Presidential campaign, and then force candidates to live within that number. Buckley ended that system before it even started, and imposed a different one, of the Justices’ own creation. The court declared that contributions could be limited but expenditures could not, and for two generations that distinction has been the central feature of the constitutional rules of campaign finance. The bottom line was that money is speech.

 - Jeffrey Toobin, "Money Unlimited," an analysis of the Citizens United case, in the May 21st issue of The New Yorker

The "bottom line", of course, is Toobin's; he himself has just written, in the prior two paragraphs that the "bottom line" is not nearly the bright (and in the paragraphs preceding it, he points out that Buckley v. Valeo is a contradictory, complicated, and extremely long decision that's hard to understand). But "bottom line'... Toobin's happy to shorthand it for you.

And shorthand that, and much else, Toobin does, for pages and pages in The New Yorker. Poorly written, sloppily fact checked - somewhere, the ghosts of the old New Yorker staff are spinning in mausolea - Toobin's exercise is mainly one of Supreme Court soap opera, full of (unverified, as far as I can tell) postulating on who does what to whom and how the Important Work of the Law gets injured in the process. Toobin's take is catnip for liberals, and blasphemy to conservatives, but both reactions give Toobin too much credit. Toobin's lazy assertions, like the breezy (and popular) sum-up of Buckley, tend to show that his investigation of campaign financing, never mind its "reform" are secondary to scoring political points and cheap shots (his disdain for Roberts, Alito, Scalia and especially Clarence Thomas are glaring). Though Toobin attempts - and he'd have to, because otherwise the article is little more than gossipy fluff - to ground his storytelling in a historical and theoretically detailed historical perspective, his retelling is slapdash, lazy, and lacking in useful specifics. For instance, he breezily sums up Watergate and the campaign reforms out of it - which led to the Buckley case - without really laying out why Congress approached the reforms as it did, or which aspects of Watergate were the real drivers for reform). This matters, I swear. He's equally lazy, and curiously vague, when describing the even earlier aspects of the Gilded Age-era practices that first led to some attempt to regulate campaigns; and he acts as if problematic campaigns, never mind questionable campaign spending, suddenly became an issue after 1870 (try looking up "Ma, Ma, who's my Paw?" for just one earlier example).

All of which makes soggy, slippery ground for Toobin to try and ground the discussion of Citizens United, though mostly Toobin can't be bothered to lay out the specifics of McCain Feingold, why they were seen as problematic from before the law even passed, and why the Supreme Court started looking askance at the law soon after it became law. And Toobin can't really avoid the fact that First Amendment issues were a concern for the Court well before the specifics of Citizens United were brought to it (a case called FEC vs. Wisconsin Right To Life in 2007 made clear that the Court was concerned about speech restrictions), but he insists that it's a "crusading" Court, led by John Roberts, that's trying to eviscerate Campaign Finance Reform. I'm at least pretty sure that's not how they would puit it; but you'll never know from Toobin, since he makes virtually no attempt to get perspectives from anyone who seemingly disagrees with his assessments.

I'm not trying to defend the Citizens United decision, or suggest that money equals speech is a great standard; if anything I don't need to, since Toobin's article, really, does most of that work itself. Though Toobin is incredulous about the path that set the Court towards overturning McCain Feingold, he does, in fact, backhandedly lay out why the decision's logic makes internal sense: trying to separate a biased, provocative, deliberately propagandistic film from other forms of political "advertising" is in many ways a distinction without a difference, and whie the Court is more willing to regulate advertising than other forms of speech, political advertising, because it is a form of speech so central to our Constitutional approach (elections, where people can freely debate ideas and assumptions), gets more than usual protectionunder the First Amendment. That's why "money=speech" is complicated, and difficult. The money Proctor and Gamble spends to sell Tide is not afforded special consititutional protections. But Mayor Bloomberg's ability to spend his own money to advocate for his own election is. And probably should be.

In any event, exploring this fascinating, difficult, and challenging subject would make for a great, thoughtful article one could chew over and debate with friends. The most frustrating thing is that Toobin hasn't written it. Which is reason enough not to bother reading it.

 

Articles We - Yup - Never Finished Reading: Rich Man's Burden

If you want to appreciate what Barack Obama is up against in 2012, forget about the front man who is his nominal opponent and look instead at the Republican billionaires buying the ammunition for the battles ahead. A representative example is Harold Simmons, an 80-year-old Texan who dumped some $15 million into the campaign before primary season had ended. Reminiscing about 2008, when he bankrolled an ad blitz to tar the Democrats with the former radical Bill Ayers, Simmons told The Wall Street Journal, “If we had run more ads, we could have killed Obama.” It is not a mistake he intends to make a second time. The $15 million Simmons had spent by late February dwarfs the $2.8 million he allotted to the Ayers takedown and the $3 million he contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans demolition of John Kerry four years before that. Imagine the cash that will flow now that the GOP sideshows are over and the president is firmly in Simmons’s crosshairs.

 

- Frank Rich "Sugar Daddies," New York Magazine Apr 22

 

...Except that, if you check out the informative graphic attached as a sidebar to Rich's article, Simmons is hardly "representative": His 15.4 million in contributions is second only to Sheldon Adelson's 20 million plus, and the tqo of them are 10-15 times ahead of far more "representative" contributions that range from about 1-2 million, generally. That's not a huge discrepancy (though the dollar figures ought to count for something), but it's indicative Rich's generally bombastic approach to the whole topic. There are prefectly good reasons to be concerned about the role of a small, but significant, number of wealthy contributors to both political parties, but Rich's fashionable hair-raised (or as Lucianne used to put it "dress up over head") screed is more about repeating familiar tropes with little real insight, overstating both the rxtent of the problem and properly identifying its more troubling aspects.

Rich does concede that a number of donors to Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove "Super PAC" that most liberals fixate on most, are secret and that, in part, there are another couple of "anonymous" $10 million donors yet to be identified. Fair enough; but even then, the number of truly "enoromous donors" over five million seems to number roughly less than ten. Moreover, Simmons is also a pretty "representative" example of throwing enormous amounts of money at a problem without seeing much in the way in the way of results. Simmons acknowledges having dumped similarly large sums into the 2008 election, to no particularly good end, and there's no real indication (despite Rich's panting and pointing) that his largesse this year will have any more effect; that doesn't make him "dangerous," that makes him a "patsy" to what I woud call some "unscrupulous" operators promising the moon and delivering a lot less. In just a few sentences, Rich goes a long way towards making Simmons seem like an old man frittering his fortune rather than a political genius - which is not exactly strengenthing Rich's point about fearing these people.

The thing which deserves far more examination than we've made in our society, is that, while "money equals speech" may be the Supreme Court's greatest error, it's not clear that "money equals success" in elections. The 2008 election - along with the two previous ones - are noted for the enormous sums raised, but the outcomes of the last few elections seem less determined by funds than by other factors about when to vote for change and when to affirm the status quo. John Kerry didn't just lose in 2004 over money issues; his failure to inspire voters, even (especially) those in his own party played an enormous role in his loss. Similarly, Obama's fundraising abilities were in many ways a subset of the real qualities that pushed him into the White House: charisma, personal appeal, and the promise of a fresh start. John McCain could have spent a small fortune - and in fact noth he and the GOP did - and still have lost as drmatically as he did.

A lot of this has to do with assumptions about the power of advertising that rarely get properly questioned, challenged or examined in more than a surface way. In a culture where we are bombarded by marketing messages from morning to night, we rarely consider what advertising really moves us to do, why, and how to realistically asses ts reach. We assume, because it is asserted repeatedly, that "negative" advertising on politicians will "ruin" candidates' electoral chances, even when, privately, many of us admit that we find these ads less than useful, often ignore tham, and seek out other, more useful information to make a choice. Yes, that's what separates "informed" voters from a group that probably is more easily swayed; even so, it's hard to know that the enormous sums spent by Crossroads is really buying any kind of real success for conservative ideas or candidates - the successes of 2010 for the GOP, surely, are a lot more about a national mood than a lot of negative ads, however Rove wants to dress up his power as a "mood alterer". Mostly, the millions backing Rove's organization seem meant, mostly, to prop up Rove as a political celebrity whose "power" as a broker is more assumed than proven (a role, I've observed, that traces back to his supposed "genius" in supporting George W. Bush, a similarly dubious proposition).

None of this is to dismiss legitimate concerns about the power of enormous wealth to buy political access, influence electoral outcomes, or suggest that I think "money equals speech" or support the current role of "Super PACs"... but I do think that a lot of the noise about the terror of "all this money" from the left is, well, just noise, mosty meant to try and lmit the actual success of the spending of conservatives, and try and ignore the large spending by groups (say, unions, anyone?) supporting the left. And, as always, I feel compelled to point out that many of these critics ought to clarify their arguments - if this is about simply being personally wealthy (and Rich is not one for distinctions), that's a different issue than the politics of spending said wealth. And as I keep trying to gently say... I think it's probably a waste of time to hate wealth. That's not going to go away. The political ads, hopefully, will.

(Also, much like "Worst Song Ever," I think I may need Ground Rules. But really, I don't hate all of Frank Rich's writing.)

ACA, Meet The Supremes

I haven't written much about politics, and even less on healthcare in a long while, and I wouldn't necessarily see a reason to start now, even with the Supreme Court arguments this week... but I think there's a few points that bear repeating. 

Which is to say: I feel like much of this "health care debate" is old news and the point's been made, but let's try again, just for giggles.

First, I tend to think the Supreme Court case is premature, but at this point, it was unavoidable. Once three Appellate Divisions had ruled, 2-1 in favor of it, there was pretty much no way for the Supreme Court not to take up this case. That's why the Supreme Court exists, to resolve disputes among the different Circuits. Still, I think the Court will regret taking this up too soon and in an election year, when the decision can't help but be all politics, and little in the way of good law.

Second, even though I think the case should have been left aside, I think the arguments that came out this week were fascinating reminders of why we're having this dispute. As someone with a lot of understanding about the issues of healthcare and health insurance in America, I still tend to forget how few people can see the bigger picture, or have thought deeply about the system of insurance and payments that we have. That, I think, has been a big driver of the "mandate is unconstitutional" side, and a lot of their naivete was on display in the Court recordings. Paul Clement's attempts, for instance, to separate health insurance as a market from healthcare services was almost laughable (and for everyone so sure of the outcomes... it was also telling that the most skeptical voice on this separation was John Roberts). Why people buy health insurance, how people use health insurance, what healthcare costs for people who don't have it, what kind of care people without health insurance can get... these are basic questions for understanding the health care problems we have, and the displays of lack of comprehension of these topics within the Supreme Court debate was deeply revealing... and deeply depressing.

Third, I think it was pretty clear that the mandate is constitutional, if unpopular. Healthcare is, virtually by definition, interstate commerce. Even separated from health service, health insurance is interstate commerce (all that takes is one company that operates in more tha one state, buying health insurance for its workers). Devising a system where people show proof of insurance or pay a penalty is a "necessary and proper" function of the tax code. This isn't hard. There might be a narrow argument that the government can't "compel" economic activity... but compulsion seems like a vague, hard to define standard (if passports require a photo... why can the government compel you to get one?). 

Fourth, the mandate isn't nearly what its opponents try to make it out to be. No one is "forced" to do anything, or buy anything, under the regulation. It says, basically, either you have health insurance or you pay a fee. The fee is comparatively small (indeed, it may be small enough that it, too, creates a perverse incentive to not buy insurance until one is absolutely desperate). Most people already have health insurance - again, more than 85% of the population, most workers through their employers, and the elderly through Medicare, just for starters. Those percentages have probably shifted somewhat since the economic downturn, but the vast majority of Americans are, still, insured. That makes the fee a dead issue for almost everyone, and the point of the healthcare legislation is that, with the mandate and other incentives, business and insurers will work harder to make sure more workers are insured, and for others, there will be increased access to programs like Medicaid, or the new health insurance exchanges.

This is not a great, or an elegant, or a nearly perfect solution to our healthcare problems; the solutions do nothing about health care cost, and they codify our employment based system of insurance in ways that probably make things worse. But that brings us back to the yearlong debate about the ACA tyo begin with - yes, there are other solutions... but most of them require enormous leaps in our healthcare systems that we're just not prepared to make as a nation. Broadening the availability of insurance is a reasonable, workable workaround. And doing it probably buys some time to craft other solutions without leaving millions with few healthcare options.

Finally, to go back to the beginning, the real mistake here may be the first one the Court made: as they debated on the first day... this case probably should be punted until the penalty fee actually goes into effect (this is the argument over the "Anti-Injunction Act" which says that you can't sue the government over a tax the government hasn't yet collected). Until the government has to start collecting the fee, we won't know how many people have to pay it. And the better case against the fee is actually probably by people who have no way to get insurance... a prospect which is much more likely to be the case if the Federal government and the States can't work out differences over Medicaid, if the health exchanges don't come together successfully, or if eocnomic conditions get worse. Even Massachusetts had to reexamine the timing and structure of their mandate fee, and the avilability of low cost insurance, as it became clear that the fee made more sense for many uninsured people when affordable insurance was unavailable. That may well be a signpost for a similar outcome, on a much larger scale, when the penalty fee goes into effect.

I'm not trying to play Mary Sunshine here - of course the Sipreme Court's conservative majority could overturn the whole thing; proof that this is far more a political choice than anything about the laws involved, more a way to score points for conservatism generally. But conservatives have, really, still no answers for the various problems our healthcare systems create, only a "fend for yourselves" approach that's disastrous not just for some, but for most of us. The Affordable Care Act is unpopular... but more to the point, it is still not really understood. And that may be reason enough to do away with it. But it's not a good reason... just like this case, really, is not a good case.

The Failure Formerly Known As Our Last President

Of course the "Super Committee" - what a dopey name - "failed." It was designed to fail, set up to fail, populated with people for whom failure was the only option. When President Obama announced the deal to extend the debt ceiling, with its absurd conditions, including a committee which would generate $1.2 trillion in cuts... or else... the painful stench of failure was already there. 

And really, it just never went away.

It's easy to pin this failure as Example 376 of How Washington Is Not Working. I find the sight of the pundits, all weekend and through yesterday, earnestly insisting that the Comittee wasn't a foregone exercise in failure, but an earnest attempt to get it done, both sad and hilarious. Nobody thought there was a workable deal. And the people who thought This Time Would Be Different are especially foolish and gullible.

Of course, Washington isn't working...but simply blaming the current crop of politicians is too easy. This is failure that Americans actually voted for, and we, as voters and citizens ought to own up to our role in it. These people in DC fail because, in no small part, we want them to fail. We don't want to pay more taxes, we don't want to see government services cut, many people just want what we had before the economy fell apart.... or more precisely, the economy we had mostly under Bill Clinton.

We elect people who promise not to make the hard choices... and then wonder why they don't make them. 

So beyond the obvious failure, the one we knew was going to happen months ago, what else was at work here, and what happens now? Well, I'd argue that the real success here, the one that was set up months ago, is a long term success for Democrats, and it's success that builds on the real failure that we've been struggling with for close to ten years... the failed Presidency of George W. Bush.

Why are we in this "debt crisis"? Well, we're here for a couple of reasons. One is because of a set of tax cuts, passed during the Bush years, which have decimated the amount of revenue the government takes in by artificially cutting everyone's income tax rate. The other reason is the implosion of financial markets, driven by an explosion in mortgage bonds fueld by bad loans... and exacerbated, in no small part, by a President who insisted "everyone should own a home," and who pushed policies and programs that would do that, including pushing people into loans that many shouldn't have taken and couldn't afford.

Since 2006, Republicans have lost election after election because of the failures of George W' Bush. That includes his policy failures, and the campaign of deep divisiveness pursued by his advisors. It also includes a failure on the part of current Republicans to repudiate the Bush-era disasters, and to develop new strategies. It's why Republicans have "problems with their base" and "Tea Party" politics driven by anger and loyalty tests to failed, contradictory philosophies.

Democrats, too, struggle with the Bush-era failures; though we made steady progress back to elected majorities in Congress and elected a President, the hangover of failed Bush policies has made dealing with the aftermath difficult. President Obama has proven to be weakest on economic issues, putting a team in place whose connections to banking and finance and acceptance of the status quo added to our problems. With no significant reform of foreclosures, big banking, or the mortgage industry, we have few real options for solving our current economic crisis. And on tax cuts, President Obama and congressional Democrats have been afraid to speak plainly that the Bush tax cuts - all of them - simply must go.

The "Super Failure" though, may offer some glimmers of solutions down the road - if the automatic cuts are adhered to, then some progress on spending will happen... and it will happen to the Defense Department, where it is long overdue. But more importantly, it now seems likely that the Bush tax cuts may well expire fully at the end of 2012. It seems clear that Congressional Democrats will not be blackmailed into bad deals over making the Bush cuts permanent, and the will to extend them past 2012 weakens every day. Further, the Super Committee debates, which rehashed familiar arguments on all sides, led more than a few pundits to a natural conclusion - we can talk about the Bush tax cuts ending, because more people are realizing that a main reaosn our deficits are so enormous is because tax policy makes no sense.

Republicans are, clearly, pinning a lot of their hopes to the elections next year, that dissatisfaction with President Obama - and managing to shift blame for much of the Bush hangover on to him - will give them the Presidency and greater control of Congress. There may be a scenario where Mitt Romney can become President... but it's still pretty unlikely, and no one, really can say what Romney's approach to economic policy would be with certainty (that's the underlying concern about his all over the place previous positions). But it doesn't matter when we're talking Bush tax cuts; those expire after the general election before the next President takes orfice. If Obama loses the eection... who thinks he'll sign off on a further extension of the Bush cuts? His best mischief would be to let them expire... and forc Romney to try and argue that recreating them makes sound budgetary sense. That won't happen, either.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will force us to move forward on other discussions - how to really tackle health care costs, reexamining the problems with banks and foreclosures, and probably having some sensible discussions about separating what's essential in governmetn spending from what can, and should, get cut. We could reform payroll taxes by raising the income ceiling. We could do tax reform that reduces deductions and resets tax rates in a smarter way than the Bush approach. There's a lot of options, and if the Bush cuts expire, we could start to figure out what they are.

Republicans need to lose next year because the Bush Presidency needs, still, to be fully and complretely repudiated. Our media avoids mentioning the failed Bush Presidency, partly because it's divisive, and partly because we don't like to talk about our past, especially our recent past. And the silence over the failed Bush presidency has alowed Republicans to pretend both that it never happened and that if it did happen, let's remember the parts we like. The failure of the Super Committee - whether we're talking the failures of deep political divisions that squashed meaningful debate, or the practical failures of deep debt and a wrecked economy, all stem directly, and pointedly, from the failures we lived through under George W. Bush. Thank goodness, really, that the Super Committee failed rather than giving us yet another way to paper over the Bush Administration's failures without directly naming them. The stench of failure you smell... that's the lingering smell of that failed President we had last time. Let's not go there again.

Mitch McConnell, The Backup Plan, And The Scorched Earth of George W. Bush

It's very likely the debt ceiling debate ended yesterday evening, when Mitch McConnell essentially offered to cave on pretty much every Republican talking point in the debate. The Senate Minority Leader offered a convoluted proposal that essentailly guarantees that President can raise the debt ceiling in three increments, without making any spending cuts. That would be the "clean debt limit" bill that Democrats argued for, months ago.

The fact that McConnell caved is not especially curious, or surprising, though the timing caught people off guard. All along, if anyone were paying attention, it's been clear that much of what passed for "negotiations" weren't especially serious. I've been avoiding writing anything about the whole mess because there was so little to say. Until an actual deal was reached, all the posturing and frantic nervousness (we'll lose Medicare! They'll destroy Social Security! Republicans will have to accept tax increases!) on all sides was mostly theater. And frankly, as theater, it was an old, familiar show.

Since the major turnover of the House of Representatives in last year's elections, there's been political storyline about how Republicans are both newly empowered and highy dangerous. The reality that the power is nearly nonexistent, and the danger, it turns out, is that an imploding Republican Party may take out much of our economy and a chunk of our government, if we're no careful. The mistake of the debt limit "negotiation" storyline over the past few months, as it turns out, wasn't all the tired theater of tax avoiding conservatives versus liberal defenders of the social safety net; it's that no one noticed, apparently, that the Republicans weren't really negotiating. Not because, as some suggested, the GOP was willing to end the world rather than riase taxes, but because the Republican Party is in such disarray that a coherent stance on the debt limit, spending, and tax policy was simply beyond their ability.

And, as a result, we get McConnell, proving himself yet again the best self interested politician. McConnell's plan may only save McConnell - and a few Republican Senators seeking reelection - but the timing of his proposal and the collapse of a coherent Republican position on the debt ceiling are the latest lesson in a string of examples that show why the 2012 election is likely to be more of the same: until the Republicans deal with the political scorched Earth left in George W. Bush's wake, there is no real choice in most of American politics.  

Yesterday's events brought me bck to the uncomfortable and odd sight after last November's elections - the press appearances by McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor where Boehner's new role as Speaker easily eclipsed McConnell's role from 2008 to 2010 as the de facto head of the GOP. I said to my Mom at the time that it seemed somewhat humiliating to parade McConnell around, when clearly the real work of government would be settled by the President, Harry Reid and Speaker Boehner.

That political dynamic, it now appears, was probably the case until Paul Ryan launched his spectacular, disastrous "budget framework" which both wrecked the new House majority's claim to seriousness (in two words: Medicare Vouchers) opn econoic issues, and revealed the internal cracks to the majority's unity. It's at that moment, I think, that Micth McConnell was able to reassert himself as someone who dealt in political realism. It's not pretty, but separating what's doable from what can't be done is how government works.

This is why I think President Obama is both overrated and underrated as President: too many of the Obama diehards still seem surprised that Obama is a President who is less concerned with idealism and more concerned with results, who is willing to accept some less desirable outcomes in pursuit of larger goals. What's underrated is that the President's cool, somewhat aloof approach to leadership is ideal for contentious, down to the wire negotiations. His "grand bargain" proposal - what we know of it - was, apparently, a bluff meant to force Republicans to either make a deal or wilt... and all they had to do was agree to some tax increases to get big spending cuts, maybe even a rethinking of Medicare and Social Security. You can propose almost anything, if you're pretty sure that your opponents can't accept the terms.

Much has been made this week of Reoublican fealty to Grover Norquist, the antitax lobbyist. I'd put Norquist's apparent level of influence another way: rather than note the fear of Republicans to cross him, I'd ask, how'd we get to a point where an unelected lobbyist can direct Republican policy decisions more than elected Republicans in government? The point is, in a world where the Republican Party was in healthy shape as a political party, Norquist wouldn't be wielding this kind of control. The fact that his influence has such weight is indicative, really, of how deeply imploded the Republican Party is, and how unlikely they are to revive anytme soon.

And, in the end, this really goes back to the failures and failings of George W. Bush and his disastrous Presidency. We are here because, let's recall, Bush picked Dick Cheney, an out of touch, elderly man in failing health as his Vice President, a position normally used to anoint a successor. After the congressional losses of 2006, which were a direct result of Bush's steamroller policies that defied the American will, Bush essentially abdicated his role as a national leader.No Republican was able, or willing, to step into the breach. Bush had reshaped the internal mechanisms of the Party to his own needs (installing his chief political advisor, Karl Rove, in the White House rather than outside of it, appointing at least two successive GOP party chairs whose main quality was loyalty to Bush). And after him, when Bush simply abandoned his position, he left little to rebuild from in his wake.

It's no surprise then, I think, to see what's happened since: the disastrous run of JOhn McCain, the rise of shrill populists like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, a party driven by the contradictory imulses of a fractured base of support, who've turned loyalty tests into a substitute for policy. It's no wonder reasonably credible moderating forces - whether it's Mitt Romney or political realists like McConnell, or other senior Senate voices like Dick Lugar and Olympia Snowe - have been dismissed, ridiculed and marginalized. The miostaken fear that many liberals have of the GOP are based, reallly, on believing the Republicans' own PR spin that the 2010 election represented an exit from the political wilderness caused by the Bush Presidency. The fact is... they're not even close. They're still trying to plant seeds of success in that scorched earth.

I don't know if McConnell's last ditch proposal can pass - on the one hand, there's clearly a large subset of the House majority that will hate it, on the other, a wily operative like McConnell doesn't just float a bullshit idea wondering if it might fly (which is to say, I think he knows a way for this to pass) - but the ppint is, we won't be getting a debt ceiling deal anything like the worst fears of all sides, with debilitating cuts or unpopular tax increases.  We might yet default on our debt obligations - the screams of "you can't possibly let that happen" beg, really, for just such a moment - but I get the impression that McConnell's cave is the last gasp of cooler heads prevailing. And what is President Obama, after all, but a cooler head? At the very least, I think Obama can see the scorched Earth. It doesn't make him a great President, but it does seem to be making him into the illusion of a successful one.

Pride And Promised Lands

I'm less interested in getting all misty over the "historic"-ness of the gay marriage vote than I am in pointing out that, as a practical matter, this was going to happen at some point, and now was as good as later. It's absurd to think that states across the northeast had made significant progress on rights for gay couples but the state on the East Coast with the most gay people - arguably the largest concentration of gays in the country, and possibly the continent - couldn't get a marriage bill passed.

Of course, that same state couldn't elect a woman to statewide office until Hillary Clinton, but never mind, the point is similar: When we move in New York, we really move.

(A quick hint to all you gals planning weddings in the NYC area: you might want to book all your services now, because finding a caterer and flowers and a cake is going to be hell in about 6 months.)

It's easy to say that gay marriage happened because gay people finally spoke up, but mostly it happened the way gay rights happened: some concentrated expressions of anger combined with a good deal of behind the scenes maneuvering. Gay people tend to assume we do best when there's a large concentration of liberals (read: Democrats) to help effect our agenda; the reality is we do better, generally, when we don't count too much on the kindness of one side, but work a much broader, practical kind of appeal across party lines. Not every Democrat is our friend. Not every Republican is our enemy.

The New York Times has an interesting breakdown of the road to gay marriage passing the New York State Senate (and it's so interesting I'm going to go ahead and link to it, even while bemoaning their pay plan), and it's clear that, as a practical matter, passage of the bill had a lot to do with backroom maneuvering and deal cutting. But it also had a lot to do with simple humanity - rather than thanking gay activists overall, we might do better thanking Sandra Lee's brother and Dorothy Turano's nephew:

Over time, however, championing same-sex marriage had become personal for Mr. Cuomo. He campaigned on the issue in the race for governor last year, and after his election, he was staggered by the number of gay couples who sought him out at restaurants and on the street, prodding him, sometimes tearfully, to deliver on his word.

The pressure did not let up at home. Mr. Cuomo’s girlfriend, Sandra Lee, has an openly gay brother, and she frequently reminded the governor how much she wanted the law to change....

Nobody ever expected Carl Kruger to vote yes.

... But unbeknown to all but a few people, Mr. Kruger desperately wanted to change his vote. The issue, it turned out, was tearing apart his household.

The gay nephew of the woman he lives with, Dorothy Turano, was so furious at Mr. Kruger for opposing same-sex marriage two years ago that he had cut off contact with both of them, devastating Ms. Turano. “I don’t need this,” Mr. Kruger told Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, the Democratic majority leader. “It has gotten personal now.”

In the end, gay rights battles come down to this kind of awareness; it's harder to hate people when they are people you know rather than people you think of in the abstract. Gay visibility has always been the trump card. And the fact that "gay marriage" to gay people was not an abstraction, not some "nice to have" but more a practical concern of couples in long term relationships, went a long way to making this issue about concrete issues, not vague, feelgood hugs from the larger world. We don't have to make all the straight people like us; we do deserve to be treated fairly.

It matters too that opposition to marriage rights has pretty much fallen apart. Howard Kurtz did a long segment on his CNN show today about "was the other side ignored" in the press... but what "other side"? The "marriage is one man and one woman" crowd? They weren't ignored... but mostly, they were nowhere to be seen. And that's because, in part, "defending marriage" has become visible nonsense. Maggie Gallagher, head of the National Organization for Marriage, is a prime example of this. As she piously (what a good word for her Catholic roots) insists on retribution for Republicans, the hollowness of the threat shines through. The alternative, for conservatives is to defeat Senators in primaries with even more extreme right candidates who, in most areas of New York State, will lose to moderate Democrats.  

Gallagher's on the losing side, now, because she and those around her realized they had to soft pedal antigay rhetoric or risk being labeled simply as antigay bigots. It isn't that they hate gay people, they kept insisting, it's that they just wanted to defend marriage. From gay people. Who shouldn't be married... because there's something, well, wrong with being gay. Because if this is actually about "defending marriage" - something I, and even other gay people, have some interest in - then let's figure out what actually needs defending and discussion; like, say, easy divorce laws (which, let's point out, also matters here, since New York became the 50th state, last year, to allow no-fault divorce. Making it easier for straights to divorce than gays to marry).

As I said, rejecting that point of view isn't "historic"... it's inevitable. As hatred of gay people and talk of "dirty sinners" has been pushed into dark, ugly corners - where it will never entirely go away - the arguments against marriage for two people of the same gender simply fall apart. As those arguments fall apart, it becomes absurd not to extend marriage to same sex couples (not, let's say it together, to polygamists or animal lovers, or whatever other wild extreme one can dream up). A world with gay marriage doesn't look different, really, from the world we had yesterday, even on Gay Pride Day here in New York. This isn't the gay Promised Land most of us had in mind (for one thing, being stuck with 8-12 more years of Andrew Cuomo seems like an unreasonable condition of surrender). But yeah, it's pretty great that the bill got passed, by whatever means necessary. It kind of restores one's faith in humanity... and even leaves one with a sense of, well, Pride.

What Happened To All That Lefty Blogging, Anyway?

My last post struck up a lively - yes, that's putting it gently - debate over moderation and lefty values... and that brought me back to a blog point I've been meaning to make since January: one good indication of the collapse of lefty ideas and political energy is the burnt wreckage landscape of the blogosphere.

The indications of this sorry state came to me in a passing conversation I had with Red, a while back, about how neither of us coud find many blogs to read, these days, that held our political interest.

And then Tapped, the blog at The American Prospect banned me from commenting.

Now the latter may seem ironically fitting or sublimely amusing, I admit: I'm surprised more blogmasters and mistresses don't ban my ass, frankly. And I always brace myself for a note from Melissa at Shakes summed up as "that's it, you're outta here."

But being banned at Tapped was amusing, to me, because they promoted me as one of the main Clinton backing bloggers, a recommendation that, at least for a while, boosted my readership and convinced me I was on the right track. They're liberal, I'm liberal... what could I possibly say to merit banning?

I still don't know (thanks, Prospect Webmaster for that timely reply!), but amidst the confusion, I found myself thinking... actually, this feels like a piece with the way the blogosphere is falling apart.

At the end of last year, several political blogs ceased operating, most notably Open Left, a commentary and lefty activist site. One of several lefty sites that evolved both out of the Dean Campaign and the world of Kos, Open Left was pretty much a daily read for me, and its absence is something I miss (some of its energy has flown back to Daily Kos, which I gave up trying to slog through long ago).

A few months ago I also took down my blogroll, partly because it wasn't fully up to date and maintained, and partly, as Red pointed out, because I hardly go to many of those spots anymore. And while part of the problem is blogger burnout - something I admit I've been struggling against myself - part of it, I think, is the slow burn of disintegration of the left in the Obama years.

It's well past the point to face that the "left" is in a state of general disarray and paralyzed with considerable inaction. As much as it's been hearteneing to see things like the weeks of unrest in Wisconsin, beyond that state's protests, there's been little energy anywhere mustered for liberal causes of late. Since the election's dramatic reversals, politics on the left has been in a kind of stasis - there's quiet rumblings of organizing for 2012, but little real enthusiasm for a fresh start, or anything like the energy which accompanied the 2007-8 primaries when so much seemed so crucially at stake.

Indeed, the lefty blogosphere has congealed into a string of "establishment" leaning and openly identified sites - from Daily Kos to Talking Points Memo to Center for American Progress to FireDoglake to American Prospect, and on - where well known names (like Kos, Marshall, Yglesias, Hamsher, Serwer etc) continue the familiar mix of alternately cheering and bemoaning the latest moves of the Administration and Congress. It's a given, in these circles, that Obama will run for reelection (and, in most cases, that we'll win) and that Congress looks to narrowly shft but the Senate will be Democratic and the House probably Republican. Outside of retirements, there's no energy to run primaries against Establishment leaders or most elected officials.

Beyond that are a collection of smaller sites, most with specific constituencies (feminists, blacks, gays, etc) and some better known, but probably less influential blog names - Melissa at Shakes, a smattering of Feministe and Feministing, Jeralyn and BTD at TalkLeft, Jack and Jill's bloggers, Sullivan Towle and Joe My God among gay men... and of course, Corrente, which probably best encapsulates the "outlier" left of non-Obama supporting, anti-Versailles left. And though they've found some traction on specific issues, few if any have meaningfully impacted the larger political debate or enrgized a kind of vocal opposition which would challenge the status quo, humming merrily towards 2012.

If I seem negative or disrespectful of any of these efforts, such as they are, that's really not my point. I'm not down on Melissa and Shakes (though I have my tensions with the tone of things there), and I'm not anti-Corrente, or anyone else. Its great, if nothing else, to find something, anything that expresses an alternative view and a fresh approach. But as I said in comments to that last post... there's just not the kind of activism or energy that I think is needed to translate anti-Establishment energy into concrete results.

The shorthand version of this is "we have no Tea Party" - and since August of 2009, I've been pretty consistent and vocal about the fact that it's the left, much more than angry conservatives on the right, who need a Tea Party in the sense that initially led those groups to have such unpredicatble force in various quarters in 2010. Democrats desperately need an urban movement that organizes the working poor to press for better representation and real results. We need the voices of hourly workers in retail jobs and we need to show up and be present - not for publicity stunts like Jon Stewart's ultimately silly exercise in niceness last year - but to raise our voices for policies that would help us, not hurt us, and to reassert ourselves as a constituency that doesn't just need to be addressed, but that will take action to replace people who don't listen.

I don't think it's all that remarkable, or controversial to point out that this dearth of lefty energy exists, and that the silence and inaction is part of the problem we're having watching Washington flail around, our political leaders making terrible deals and lousy compromises and defending the interests of the privileged and powerful. We can tak all day about the barriers that hold us back - the millions of dollars of special interests, or the Suprmem Court's decision in Citizens United, or the "Versailles" like qualities of a certain political elite - but that's not action, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

I said it before and I meant it - I'll show up, whenever and wherver peiople want to stand up to do more for people in need and challenge people with privileges to give them up and give back. I'll write about it, I'll push for it, whatever it takes. When I started blogging, it seemed lots of people shared that view and that energy. Now, not so much. I don't know entirely what happened, and I have only a modest idea as to why. But in the end... the point is, we need to move beyond that. Can't other people see that?

The Money Shot

Forgive my use of a coarse metaphor, but I think rather than looking at the familiar "who's up and who's down" discussion of DC politics since the shutdown was averted, we should take a term from, er, adult films: who delivered the money shot?

(And lest we get into "who's the girl" sexism... since the President and Harry Reid and John Boehner are that main culprits here... let's keep things guy on guy.)

The basic lesson of shutdown aversion was that everyone got something here (it's a flip-flop!): Republicans got a set of spending reductions that were larger than Democrats initially were willing to accept; and Democrats got elimination of series of "policy riders," most notably stopping attempts to eliminate funds for health services at clinics that also provide abortion services (i.e., the Planned Parenthood defunding).

But if someone looked relaxed and confident and clearly delivering what people wanted... it strikes me that the President made out best.

For once, the President, if no one else, seemed able to govern in the present tense; while others shouted and wailed and bemoaned a possible shutdown as if it were a done deal, the President calmly, and apparently effectively, said "get this done, now." In so doing, he probably just became the President he was meant to be, the one a number of us lefties suspected he's been all along - a Clintonian compromiser, willing to give some things up to see a deal get done.

We can argue, at length, about whether the agreement gave away too much, or the cuts will wreck the economy... but I tend to think that lefties should, for now, be somewhat grateful and impressed: at a time when Democrats seem to have few clear governing principles and no sense of where to go from here, the President had enough leverage to hold Republicans back from their absolute extremes, and avoid a painful, probably crippling government shutdown. If conservatives did as well as some diehards maintain... why did they seem so unenthusiastic and so dismayed by the end result?

And why does it look as though these cuts may be about the best they'll get anytime soon?

The Tea Party Sags, Labor's Resurgent... But Anger Is Probably Still Not Enough.

On the eve of a possible federal shutdown, there's plenty of reason for liberals and lefties to feel confident - not least of which is the fact that Glenn Beck has apparently been canned by Fox.

Beck is going the way of John Gibson (who held his 5pm slot before Beck got it), and maybe Fox will realize that wild-eyed demagogues don't work long term... but I wouldn't bet on it. Either way, Glenn Beck's fall from (Nancy) grace, and high ratings built on easy controversies, is as good a place as any to start talking about the Tea Party's diminishment.

No TV personality rode the wave of Tea Party anger like Beck; even if all of Fox News benefitted from stiking the rage on the right, it was Beck who gave the right wing Tea Partiers the credibility of actually featuring them - and their ideas - prominently, and giving voice to the inchoate rage that defined the last election cycle.

However one slices the numbers - from Beck's 40% ratings decline this year to the shrinking Tea Party base of support - it's clear that much of the rage has dissipated on the right. In part, that's the natural result of winning so many Congressional elections, much the way the post-Obama election glow faded quickly as Obama attempted to govern; in our current phase of "winning is all" approach to political campaigns, once the victory glow fades, reality sets in, and the new guys turn out to be not much better, or different, from what's come before.

In the case of Tea Party victors, that's meant a return to the reality that Republicans, as a party, have been bereft of fresh ideas and a governing approach for some time; as much as Paul Ryan's lousy budget proposal was eagerly awaited and dressed up in impressive seriousness, Ryan's proposals amount to a compilation of contradictory, unpopular and likely to fail plans that cut vital services and finance further tax breaks for the well off.

And other than Ryan, the most bracing Republican plan across the nation is to eliminate the rights of unionized workers to collectively bargain.

And that's another story that's turned out to be a disaster for the GOP.

Wisconsin, And The Articles Of Faith

As I said previously, I think the challenge in looking at events unfold in Wisconsin between the Governor, the Legislature and the Unions, is trying to figure out how this plays out. Even though this week so a resolution that had clearly been likely all along - that Republicans would simply enact the union-busting provisions without the budget votes that needed Democrats present - where things go from here is still something of a mystery.

Partly, Wisconsin is a reflection of the worst effects of deep polarization in politics, where there is no common ground, where two sides can never agree. More than that, though, Wisconsin strikes me as being about the roots of that polarization - the "articles of faith" that drive true believers in both parties, beliefs that are, in many ways, unshakable.

Democrats have been dealing with their own damaging articles of faith during the health care "reform" debate and the aftermath of the 2010 elections. These were the assumptions that all the reform proposals were good and right, and that by being good and right, they would win with public support. Many liberals - good, thoughtful people otherwise - are bewildered to discover that so much of the health care reform plan is highly unpopular, did little to encourage voters in the last election, and still cannot be entirely sold to the public.

In my idealistic youth - and believe me, I had one - I too would have been mystified. We have a great ideas. We are right about so many things. Who doesn't see that? It took years, a number of painful Democratic defeats and some real immersion in the conservative side of arguments to realize that there are, in fact, more ways of looking at things - still, not necessarily the right ones, but listening to counterarguments made me think harder about what I consider facts, and what are simply, deeply held beliefs.

For conservatives, it's an article of faith that unions are bad, dangerous, and counterproductive (as well as a corrupt, slushy, source of funds for Democrats and their political goals). Their belief in this is unshakable, unbowed by facts... and not generally susceptible to negative public opinion.

Yes, it's also counterintuitive - especially when one considers that white working class voters - who make up some of the angriest and most vigilant conservative supporters - owe a great deal of their working rights, and their incomes, to the work of unions. A lot of this is regionally driven, an example of how views from the formerly confederate South have taken over the conservative movement and the GOP; it's the "right to work" South that was always the staunchest opponent of unions and unionization. And much of the recent anti-union effort has been driven by transferring "right to work" ideas from the South into the midwest.

We won't know, I think, for a while yet if these efforts take hold firmly enough to damage what remains of the union movement... but in a sense, it doesn't matter how this plays out to many conservatives. Win or lose, some will hold onto that article of faith that is antiunion. That's the real lesson of Scott Walker, who has shown the kind of absolute faith in an unpopular idea that may well lead to his political defeat.

In a sense, we were always bound to get to this point in American politics: the last few years have been, on both sides, a challenge to previously long held beliefs, certainties about how the world works, what people will agree with us about, and who's really right. Democrats have paid a huge price for insisting on a course of action on health care "reforms" that steamrolled public opinion, ignored reasonable opposition, and stifled even internal dissent. Similarly, Republicans have decided that the Walker play has to be defended at all costs, and unpopular arguments about fiscal discipline, steamrolling of public objections, ignoring reasonable discussions about compromise, and stifling internal dissent.

This is about true believers, and deeply held beliefs. And chances are, Republicans in many states will pay a price quite similar to theone Democrats just paid in the House elections. Because America, mostly, is not a nation of true believers... just situational ethiics and foxhole prayers. Wisconsin should never have come to this. But here we are... and if the true believers, and their absolutes, are rejected on both sides... then what?